WHAT PEOPLE WANT TO KNOW ABOUT NATIONAL OPEN UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA

It is very crucial to seek authentic information from credible sources before taking action just to avoid being misguided by people. There are people who know next to nothing about your questions or who have only a nodding acquaintance with the question concerned but who will always want to answer these questions out of ignorance. Many people have suffered the pain of obtaining wrong pieces of information and of being made to behave like a blind man in a race.

Now, a blind man who is running is prone to such accidents as falling over, trampling on reptiles and so on. And such is the picture of those who are always in a hurry to get one form of spurious information or another. This is especially true for National Open University of Nigeria which many Nigerians claim to know but in the contrary. More so is the fact NOUN is in many ways unique and distinctive among other universities in Nigeria. This uniqueness and novelty has opened it to one form of misinterpretion or another. But the far cry reality is that majority of those who hold such views about the 21st century university build their mentality from the profundity of their ignorance. If this is the case, what exactly is NOUN?

The National Open University of Nigeria is a federal university just like other federally owned universities in Nigeria. It was established by the Acts of Parliament in 1983, suspended but resuscitated in 2002 by president Olusegun Obasanjo. NOUN is the only specialist provider of Open and Distance Learning at the tertiary level in Nigeria. 'Open' means that there are no entry barriers such as UTME, Post Jamb, etc, 'Distance' means that the instructional delivery method is not designed like the classroom setting. A distance learner is removed in time and space from his lecturers. He manages his own reading activities unlike in the conventional system where lecturers have to do these for students.

It is open to reflect its high moral standard. The National Open University of Nigeria is the first of its kinds in West Africa and I strongly believe that with further improvements, it will register its presence in the entire sub-region.

The future of university education in Nigeria lies with the ODL(Open Distance Learning) going by the recent collaboration between NUC and Skulportal Technology, an ICT company based in the United Kingdom. NUC is planning to make six universities: NOUN, UI, UNILAG, UNIMAID, FUTA and OAU to run open distance learning system. Apart from NOUN, whose operation is unimodal, that is, ODL, the other five universities are to operate both the ODL and the traditional classroom system, that is bimodal in operation.

There are numerous misconceptions about National Open university of Nigeria. This is informed by the novelty of open distance learning system in the country. This ignorance has slowed down the decision of many prospective beneficiaries to avail themselves of the opportunities inherent in the system. Some misconceive the school as an exclusive preserve of the rich. Some think it is not recognized. Some think it is owned by a private organization and some other people believe it is meant for graduate students only.

However, each of these interpretations is a pointer to the profundity of people's ignorance about the university. For this reason I will like to wet your already dry appetites by providing the ABC of the 21st century university in order to satisfy your gusto and curiosity about the hows, the whys and the wherefores of the institution.